May 01, 2011

Broadcast Date: 
May 1 2011

The Fatah-Hamas accord — what is it likely to mean?; the economics, and political theater, behind the debate over lifting the debt ceiling; plus we remember Sidney Lumet.

Episode segments
  • Fatah-Hamas Agreement
    International Politics, Israeli Politics, Middle East, Israel/Palestine, Palestinian Politics, Occupation
    Daniel Levy is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Prospects for Peace Initiative at The Century Foundation.  He directs The Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation and is an editor of the Middle East Channel.
    Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Fatah and Hamas, until now bitter opponents, announced this week in Egypt that they have agreed on the contours of a unity government, with new elections to be held in a year.  Have tectonic plates started to shift? We ask Daniel Levy.

  • Economics or Politics? The Debt Ceiling.
    National Politics, Domestic Policy
    Ethan Pollack is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Economic Policy Institue in Washington DC.
    Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Treasury Secretary Geithner warns that failure to increase the debt ceiling could be catastrophic and potentially more harmful than the effects of the financial criris of 2008/2009.  Is he correct or is he crying wolf?  And what is the debt ceiling anyway?  Ethan Pollack explains.

  • Remembering Sidney Lumet
    Film, Arts & Culture, Obituaries
    Mark Harris is the author of Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and The Birth of the New Hollywood. 
    Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Mark Harris talks with us about Sidney Lumet, who died recently at the age of 86, marking the end of a film career that spanned five decades.